Generally speaking, in an elevator hall where a plurality of elevators are provided side by side, call buttons called up/down buttons and hall lanterns for respective cars are provided in many cases. In this hall system, when the passenger depresses an up or down call button, an assigned car is immediately selected by a group control unit and the hall lantern of the corresponding assigned car is lit to let the passenger know which car to take. In this system, the command regarding the destination floor for the passenger is input within the car after the passenger has got on it.
In this system, a number of passengers with different destination floors get on the same car, and the number of times that the car stops is inevitably large. Thus, it takes a long time for the car having left, for example, the first floor, to return thereto, which is disadvantageous from the viewpoint of transportation efficiency.
In view of this, there has recently been proposed a system in which the destination floor is input at the elevator hall, the passenger being informed of an assigned car selected on the basis of the input. In this system, a car is assigned and selected with the destination floor being known, so that it is possible to perform, as much as possible, group control such that passengers whose destinations are the same are let on the same car. As a result, it is possible to substantially reduce the number of times that each car stops, thereby achieving an improvement in terms of transportation efficiency as compared with the system in which up/down buttons allowing the passengers to exclusively register directions of their destination floors are adopted.
Examples of such a system, in which the passenger is informed of a car assigned and selected for each destination floor input at the elevator hall, are disclosed, for example, in JP 9-315708 A (hereinafter referred to as the prior-art technique (a)) and JP 2563545 B (hereinafter referred to as the prior-art technique (b)).
First, FIGS. 4(a) and 4(b) schematically show the prior-art technique (a). This system is composed of an elevator hail operation panel 100 having destination floor buttons 101 allowing input of a destination floor at the elevator hail and display panels 102 displaying the destination of each car in a zone form.
FIGS. 5(a) and 5(b) schematically show the prior-art technique (b). In this system, there is provided in the elevator hall a hall operation panel 200, on which there are provided a keyboard 201 for inputting a destination floor and a display panel 202. When the passenger operates the keyboard 201 to input a destination floor, destination floor information 203 as input is displayed on the display panel 202. At the same time, assigned car information 204 informing of an assigned car selected by a group control unit in correspondence with the destination floor is displayed on the display panel 202. For the assigned car information 204, a car name corresponding to a car name plate 210 provided on each car is used. Further, there is displayed, at the same time, position indicator information 204, 205 indicating on which side of the ball operation panel operated the assigned car exists.
FIGS. 4(a), 4(b), 5(a) and 5(b), which are conceptual drawings, differ from the original drawings of the above-mentioned publications. Similarly, reference numerals in these drawings are used as appropriate.
In the prior-art technique (a), the assigned-car selection for each destination floor is restricted to the zone form. Thus, when, for example, passengers going to the fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth floor come to the elevator hall, several passengers for each floor, it is necessary for the car on the left-hand side in FIG. 4 to stop at three floors: the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors, whereas the car on the right-hand side only stops at the fifth floor, resulting in variation between the right and left cars. Generally speaking, in group control, it is desirable that the burden on each car is uniform from the viewpoint of transportation efficiency. In this system, however, it is not always possible to realize evenness in burden, resulting in a deterioration in transportation efficiency.
Regarding this problem, the prior-art technique (b) proves effective. For example, it is possible to assign the fifth and eighth floors to the left-hand side car A and the ninth and tenth floors to the right-hand side car B, thus making it possible to effect assigned-car selection more flexibly than in the prior-art technique (a). This system, however, only indicates on which side of the designation/registration/display device the selected assigned car exists. When, for example, there exist eight cars or so, a plurality of cars exist on either side of the device, which means it is impossible to identify a car from the assigned-car position indicator information alone.
Further, the display of the assigned-car information 204 on the display panel 202 is erased when the next passenger operates the operation panel. Thus, the passenger has to remember the car name until the assigned car in question arrives, which leads to a problem that, in some cases, the passenger experiences anxiety.
The present invention has been made with a view toward solving the above-mentioned problems in the prior art. It is an object of the present invention to provide an elevator system which enables the passenger to identify the assigned car at a glance and which is capable of guiding the passenger so that he can get on the designated car without experiencing any anxiety.